Report suggests international students applying to US schools in decline

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS LOOK ELSEWHERE: President Donald Trump’s vast immigration crackdown — and the message it sends — is discouraging international students from attending U.S. colleges and universities, POLITICO’s Benjamin Wermund reports.

“Foreign competitors are taking advantage of Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, aggressively recruiting the types of foreign students and faculty who would have typically come to the United States for their higher education,” Wermund reports. “The data already shows that U.S. colleges are falling behind foreign competitors during the Trump era.”

U.S. international student new enrollment decreased an average of 7 percent in the 2017-2018 school year, according to a preliminary survey of nearly 500 colleges and universities by the Institute of International Education. At the same time, academic institutions in countries such as Australia and Canada have seen a surge in new foreign student enrollment. Australia experienced a 12 percent increase in international students last year, Wermund reports, and “Canada, China, New Zealand, Japan and Spain all posted double-digit increases in international enrollment, according to data from the nonprofit International Educational Exchange.” Trump’s travel ban is among the policies that U.S. education advocates blame for depressed international student enrollment. Since those students tend to pay sticker price for tuition, room and board, the falloff is having an outsized impact on college and university finances.